Shotgun Charlie Read Online Free Page B

California, he believed he knew where to go.

Chapter 5
    The raw tang of slow-burning, wet wood tickled Charlie’s nostrils, waking him. Something told him to lift his head, pop open those eyes. Problem was, that was a whole lot harder than it sounded. He tried to run his tongue around the inside of his mouth, but it felt like a raspy river rock and his lips felt as though they’d been hammered together by a burly blacksmith. Same blacksmith whose big fists were playing the Devil’s own band inside Charlie’s skull, enough so that he was sure it was about to split wide open anytime.
    â€œBoy!”
    A voice through water, echoing through a cavern, maybe through a split in a big rock . . .
    â€œBoy!”
    Someone smacked him hard on the face. Charlie managed to crack an eye open, enough to let light in. Then came another smack, different this time.
    â€œBoy, you hear me? You got to put some effort into this, elsewise I can’t help you.”
    Something hit his face again, but this time it didn’t feel so much like a crack to the chops as a wet something. It dragged up over his eyes and . . . he could open the other one. Now both, wider.
    There was an old man—but wait, wasn’t that the same old man? Leaning over him? Yes, he’d seen that face, homely as it was, somewhere before. Now he knew, it was the old man who’d come in with those riders. But what did he want?
    â€œYou . . .”
    The old man smiled. “That’s right. It’s me. You remember?”
    â€œStop it.”
    The old man leaned closer. “How’s that?” He was still smiling.
    Charlie was beginning to get annoyed. Who smiled so much anyway? If this was heaven, he wasn’t all that sure he was going to like it. “Stop . . .”
    â€œStop what?”
    â€œStop hitting me . . . in the face.”
    The old man backed up, eyes wide. “What? Hitting you?” Then his face split wide open in a smile. He turned and said something, and then Charlie heard hoo-raws and guffaws from behind the man.
    â€œHe thinks I was hitting him!” More laughter; then the old man bent low and held up a rag. “I was wiping your face down, boy. You done took a chill. Lord knows how long before we come along. By the time we found you, you was past knockin’ on the door. You was taking off your hat and steppin’ on through!” He turned again.
    Now Charlie saw faces crowding down close.
    â€œAin’t that right, boys?”
    A chorus of men nodded, all of them looking down at Charlie with more concern than he recalled them having before. As if a bung had been pulled from an overfilled barrel, Charlie’s memories of recent events flooded out. Teacup dying, plain old giving up the ghost. All that work of prying around in the rooty, bony soil to carve out a hole big enough for her to rest in . . .
    Then gathering those rocks, the never-ending task of hauling stones back for her grave so no critters could have at her. Then the rains, hard, driving rains that laid him low, in and out of himself, as if he were being dunked one minute in icy streams, and then the next in a boiling scalding pot used at pig killings. Then these men had shown up. He recalled them arranged around him on horses, and he’d felt sure they were about to kill him.
    â€œBoy, you back with us now? I think we should muckle on to you and get you to set upright. Can’t be good on a man’s body to have him all laid out like a corpse when he ain’t one. Less’n he’s sleeping. Mex and Ace, you get on over here and hoist this big boy upright so he’s sitting like a man again.”
    Before Charlie could protest, a skinny, freckled redheaded man with a stubbled face and horrible breath grabbed him high on his right arm and a darkish, solid fellow, some years older than Charlie, did the same on his left. This man wore his long hair